Trials of Yuno Gasai
by ChikaiItachi
Summary: A few chapters showing the suffering that Yuno went through in an emotionally abusive, neglectful home. Leads up to when she accidentally kills her parents. This story will also look into Yuno's behavior, the early indicators of sociopathic and obsessive tendencies. Partly based on my own past (but exaggerated).
1. Earliest Memories

**1: Earliest Memories**

My excellent memory has always felt like a curse to me. There are a lot of things I would rather forget. Later on, as a teenager, gaps began to appear in my memory in daily life. Still, my memory of my childhood always remained clear.

My earliest recollections are of St. Emiliani Orphan Care Facility. In the orphanage, I was not deliberately mistreated, but I was overlooked and accidentally neglected often. My ears were always filled with the sound of crying and wailing from dozens of other young children and toddlers. Only one of the care-keepers ever called me by name, and even then, she only did so a handful of times. I remember once asking what my name was, and a kind care-keeper showed me my papers, which said my name was Kanazawa Sumire. She wouldn't tell me what happened to my real parents.

I also remember being mocked and yelled at by some of the other children because, during preschool-like activities, I always out-performed the others. My intelligence was doubtlessly the main reason that the Gasai family adopted me. I can recall the interview room, and I remember thinking that the Gasai couple were the best dressed people I had ever seen. I believe I would have been only four when they adopted me. So began my life as Gasai Yuno in the spring of the year 2000. What lay ahead of me would not be an enjoyable upbringing.

I always went to prestigious private academies as a young child. Even my preschool was a place for well-off children ahead of the rest in intelligence. Long before I fully understood that I was so separate from the world of normal children, I remember feeling oddly set apart. It was not pleasant feeling. I was lonely because I was afraid of talking to other children. My parents taught me to always speak politely, hold back any childish thoughts, and never speak unless spoken to. The teachers in the private elementary school were strict and had connections to my parents. If I ever showed the slightest rudeness or used incorrect speech, everything would get straight back to my parents, who would punish me. That's why I was afraid of talking with the other children. Well, that and the fact that they disliked me when I was pressured to tell them about my high scores.

My father rarely punished me. I can't remember him laying a hand on me, anyway. It seemed like he was always gone. I would often go entire days without seeing him since he would leave early and come home late. I wasn't allowed to stay up late and wait for him. It was my mother who punished me. In the days of elementary school, she used corporal punishment, either spanking me with her hands or with a large wooden spoon. When we walked beside each other in a social setting, she would squeeze my hand so hard it forced tears to my eyes. It was a reminder to be quiet. My mother also had a favorite way of stopping me if I tried to run off or grabbing me from behind if I said something wrong. She would pinch the muscle where my shoulder met the base of my neck, squeezing the brachial plexus and causing tingling pain and numbness all the way down my arm. My mother had an iron grip.

When I was seven, a nice girl in my class said she wanted to be friends with me. She said the teachers and her parents were hard on her, too. She had bruises under her uniform that she showed me in secret in the bathroom. Though I did not understand the significance of that at the time, I liked the idea of hanging out with her because I felt we were similar. Until then I had only ever talked about school with other kids, strongly encouraged by my parents to compete with them even when I didn't want to. This girl, however, wanted to play games, talk about dolls, share stories, and make crafts with me.

Unfortunately, such a friendship was forbidden territory for me. I asked my parents if I could arrange a Sunday to invite the girl over to play, and they refused. They also refused to let me go see her when she invited me to things. After I kept complaining about it, my parents reacted by forbidding me from speaking with the girl and telling the teachers to watch me during class breaks so I had no chance to be with her.

Whenever my parents made a decision like this, they would meet with me and have me kneel on the mat in the living room while they stood towering above me. This time, they said I couldn't be friends with that girl because she was rebellious. Now, I know it's because they were friends with her parents, who complained about the girl's disrespect even though she was only six. The fear of being hit again and again with the wooden spoon made me keep my mouth shut. Eventually, the girl who wanted to be my friend stopped trying to talk to me. She stopped inviting me to play. I cried a lot that year.

Another thing that separated me from other children my age was the fact that I was always given rides to and from elementary and middle school by my mother. She would always drive Dad's expensive, shiny car. Everyone who walked, biked, or took the bus or subway to school stared at me. Most of the time, they stared with envy and hatred. By the time I was nine, I was more than capable of taking the train to school together with two other girls in the neighborhood, but my parents refused to allow this. They would insist on giving me rides to school until my last year of middle school, even though I protested every year.

I knew, even when I was seven, that I was being held to different standards than most normal children. I wasn't allowed to watch TV or go see movies. The more well-off kids at school started getting cell phones around age eleven, but I would not receive mine until age fourteen. My parents would say it was because I had not done enough to deserve it. All novels except classic literature were forbidden, and manga was completely out of the question. To make things even stranger, I had absolutely no choice in picking out my own clothes, not even when I turned fourteen. My parents always decided what I would wear. My mom would dress up my hair in the most uncomfortable ways when I was young. She sometimes pulled on my hair on purpose to make me cry. She wouldn't stop until I told her I was sorry for having prettier hair than her.

My parents were extremely strict about rules and etiquette. I even had to take etiquette and Home-Ec classes outside of regular school. I learned calligraphy, sewing, tea serving, and ceremonial dress. My parents made me use these skills whenever they had guests over, which was often back in grade school days. I was essentially the servant anytime these visits happens. Refusal to appear and perform for the guests was harshly punished. I was also punished when I messed up. One time, at age eight, I was spanked twelve times for dropping a tea cup by accident.

It was around this time that corporal punishment finally stopped for the most part. One day, my mother slapped me and I lost my balance and fell down against the table in the living room. The neighbors heard me scream. It wasn't the first time I had been vocal during a punishment, but this was louder than usual. The neighbors began raising questions and my parents and I had to go through interviews with child services as a result. (Naturally, I was told to praise my parents and not complain at all, or they would punish me; they also said I would no longer be a good daughter that they could love.)

Child services dropped the issue after the interviews, but the experience taught my mother to be more cautious. Afterward, she rarely became physical with me again. However, she had plenty of other tricks up her sleeve to keep me in line. The most sickening thing she devised was the dreaded closet.

To Be Continued


	2. The Closet

**2: The Closet**

In my parents' bedroom there was a closet that had been fixed with a lock. It was where Dad used to keep certain family treasures in a safe before he started storing them in a lockbox at the Gasai Bank. The very first time I was sentenced to the closet was in the late summer of 2005 when I was almost nine. School had been back in session for a couple of weeks. I came home with my grades on the latest tests.

"Straighten your shoes more before you come in here," my mom said. She never welcomed me with the usual "Okaeri" greeting. "Make sure all the shoes are pointed straight and not out of line. I can't have you cutting corners."

"Yes ma'am," I replied, carefully arranging each shoe and hiding my frustration. I always had to say "ma'am" and "sir" to my parents, or they would yell at me. "Okaa-sama, I brought my tests back like you asked," I said, stepping inside and handing her the papers.

My mother took a moment to scan the tests with her critical eyes. "Yuno, what is this? You only got an eighty-seven in science class." Her hands began to tremble with anger and her eyes narrowed dangerously. "I told you last time," she snapped. "You absolutely must make an A on the science test. That's what I said. You've got nineties and above on everything else. Why did you mess up this one?!"

"I'm sorry, Okaa-sama," I said, and genuinely. I really wanted her to be proud of me. "I guess I'm just not as good at science as I am at other things. But next time I'll work even harder to understand."

"Stop making excuses!" my mother growled. "You did this for the sole purpose of disobeying me to make me angry. Why else would you only get an eighty-seven on the one test that I told you to ace? I won't stand for this rebellious behavior." She grabbed me by the arm and began leading me upstairs.

I followed timidly because I didn't know what else to do and I was only eight (or nine). We entered my parents' bedroom. I thought she was going to close the door and start hitting me like she used to, and I made up my mind, despite the thundering of my heart, that I would object. I would yell and make sure the neighbors heard it.

"I'm not going to hit you," said my mother in an icy tone. "You're too old for spanking. But you're still as devious and selfish as ever. Get in the closet. I said get in there. Now!"

After a few seconds of hesitation, I went into the closet, tears beginning to well up in my eyes at being called 'devious' when I had tried my very best. I was small enough to crouch on the floor with my head brushing against the ends of gowns and long kimonos hung up on the bar above. My mother shut the door and locked it. Everything became pitch black. I couldn't see. I tried to control myself, but I started to cry.

"Shut your mouth," came my mother's voice through the door. "Stay in there and don't move. I'll come and get you when you when you've thought enough about your disrespectfulness. If you yell or beat on the door, I will come and beat YOU. Got it?!"

"Yes ma'am," I sobbed. "But… but how long? It's so dark."

The cold reply was, "However long it takes." After that, she didn't answer me anymore, so she must have left the room.

That day, I was locked in the closet for nearly five hours. I had to use the bathroom, and after I sobbed "I'm sorry," about a hundred times, my mother finally let me out. I was sent to study immediately. After that, the closet became the standard punishment. I could be punished for anything from telling a childish lie to using incorrect grammar. Sometimes I was punished for no reason at all other than my mother being in a bad mood. She would say that she hated looking at me and she had to shut me away to make me prettier. She would always say it was because she loved me, which made me feel extremely confused.

For a while, it seemed like I was in the closet every day for something or other. Sometimes it was only for an hour, and sometimes it was up to six hours. I was never allowed to eat or drink during that time. Two or three times, I was in there too long and peed myself, leading to even more verbal abuse from my mother. I was trapped in the dark doing nothing, and as soon as I was let out, I had to study. My Dad once found me in the closet when he got home from work late one night. He yelled at mom over it, and she promised she wouldn't do it anymore. Needless to say, the promise was empty.

The frequency of being locked up decreased over time, but it still happened three or four days a week. In addition to the closet, my mother found other ways to keep me wrapped around her finger. When I was ten, she started a keeping a tally of the number of times I talked back to her (and she would sometimes count me answering her questions as talking back to her).

She kept the logs so diligently it disturbed me. I received a little less yen for allowance each time I "talked back," or failed to make a B+ or higher on any test. When there was nothing left of my allowance, my punishment became hours per day in the closet. When I was eleven, my mother added various other lists such as number of times I was late coming home from school (she gave me rides to school but not back anymore), number of times I used non-formal speech, number of Bs and Cs I made instead of As, and number of times I cried when I was supposed to sit in silence. Eventually she started making me keep the tallies myself. If I didn't update the logs, I would receive more time in the closet and less time to spend at school or playing.

How did my mother manage to do all this to me and/or make me do it to myself? She didn't enforce it with physical punishment anymore. Instead, she became skilled at emotional manipulation. If you didn't do exactly what she said, she could make you feel like a terrible human being, even one unworthy of life. You might say she had a whole arsenal of emotional weapons.

Insults disguised as compliments. "You're my treasure and a jewel, and those friends you want will only make you dirty." "You're as fragile as a flower that will die if I don't keep you in the water vase."

Using fear to keep me isolated from the world. "People only pretend to be your friends, when they really only want to use you." "If you spend too much time talking to boys, they are bound to make you unfit for marriage." "Kidnappers are always out after the children of rich families, so you must never go outside."

Making me think I am responsible for my mother's feelings. "If you keep complaining, I will cry because you clearly think I am a terrible mother." "You wouldn't talk that way if you really loved me." "All you ever do is upset me."

Distracting me from asking reasonable questions. "You think you know better? I'm the one who nursed you." "Why don't you try asking questions once you have a real life?!" "What could a child possibly have to say that I don't know?"

Conditional love and nurturing. "I can't be expected to invest my care into such a devious daughter." "If you simply did what was expected of you, I could freely love you." "How can you expect parents to care about a daughter who disrespects them?" "Maybe if you were smarter I could love you without reservation."

Besides all this emotional manipulation, neglect occurred in my family as well. Even though my family was rich, they rarely if ever took me to the doctor. I didn't get the usual vaccinations or checkups and I was never given a proper sex education either. Injuries were left untreated, and I'm lucky I washed myself enough to avoid infection.

My mother rapidly switched between adoration and complete disgust with me. Needless to say, I felt emotionally neglected. My mother sometimes didn't make meals for me, and she didn't teach me how to cook. Luckily, I learned how in Home-Ec classes and took care of myself. As for my father, he was gone all the time. On a good week I would see him three times. He usually stayed cold and distant. When he actually tried to talk to me, it was extremely awkward for both of us, and I couldn't help resenting it.

All of this continued until I was well into my twelfth year. That's when things got even worse with my graduation from the closet and the coming of the Cage. Before I get into that, though, I want to tell you about my own behavior as a child. No child should be emotionally abused or neglected, but even so… let's just say that I was no angel myself.


	3. Rebellion

**3: Rebellion**

I don't think I was ever a "normal" girl. If I was, then I don't remember it. At school, around town, with my parents, and on the TV (when I disobeyed and watched it), I gathered some facts about people that seemed strange to me. Normal people are able to empathize with other people, even unrelated people, to extraordinary degrees. Killers are rare because the human instinct of empathy prevents the average person from being able to simply kill another person. Soldiers, who sometimes kill others in duty, sometimes have issues with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, guilt, and remorse. Normal people also fear the law and jail to an extreme degree, keeping them in line. I also heard people talk about honor and values that make it "wrong" to break laws.

Remorse, physical empathy, emotional attachment, fear of punishment, and respect for a code of honor… these are feelings that don't often come naturally to me. I had always felt that if I had to kill a person, I would be able to, and it wouldn't destroy me emotionally. It's not that I entertained thoughts of killing people, though. Well, not at that point. A set of values sounds restricting, and I don't understand why people become so obsessed with theirs. It's not that I had no values—I mean, I had things I did and didn't want to do, and risks I did or didn't want to take—but I felt that adjusting those values over time could be the only rational course of action.

I was certainly capable of feeling remorse, but not to the same degree that I think others do. Starting around age ten, boys would sometimes come to talk to me and ask to be my special friend. At age eleven I started getting love letters. I rejected all those boys in the cruelest ways I could think of, and I rarely felt bad about it. I only felt remorse over things when my mother called me a failure or a bad daughter or when she cried about how terrible she thought I was. (She didn't know a thing about the boys, by the way. I kept it to myself. Her criticisms were over petty things like chores, grades, and incorrect speech.)

Fear in general had little hold over me—except, again, the fear of disappointing my mother. I felt that fearing authority in a more general sense was unproductive. If people are so afraid of jail, then they should just be smarter and hide their crimes better. I've always thought that way. There are laws about animal cruelty too, but they didn't stop me from throwing large rocks and other harmful objects at cats in the alleys on my way from school.

I once killed a cat using a pocket knife I stole from a boy who I rejected. (Again, I had no remorse over the theft.) I did it because I had read about hunters out in the country. I found I liked the idea of hunting very much. However, I did feel quite guilty after killing the cat. So I decided it was senseless to hunt and kill things that posed no threat or competition to me.

After that I didn't kill any more cats. I did enjoy finding them dead, however, along with run-over dogs and the occasional fox or tanuki. I studied their bodies in great detail and was never bothered by the blood, gore, or bones. I didn't feel particularly sad. The lives of those animals simply seemed to have no relevance to my own life.

All this makes me sound like a cold-hearted person, but I didn't feel cold in the sense of not having emotions. On the contrary, I felt very strong emotions every day. I hated myself for not being good enough for my parents. I even cut myself a few times where nobody would notice. A part of me felt rage at my mother and father, and at the school system, but I always did my best to hide it. I frequently felt afraid—not of authority in general, but afraid that my mother might stop caring for me, throw me out on the street, or lock me away until I starved. I was terrified of tight spaces. I wondered worriedly about my future. Would things always be this miserable?

Thinking that way made me feel so depressed and frustrated that I didn't know what to do. So I lashed out at the world by hurting the cats, massacring insects, destroying flowers I didn't like, and heartlessly rejecting all boys who approached me. Sometimes I even bragged about my grades and made fun of other girls who didn't do well in school. This lashing out, however, could be reined in at any time. I could control it. That's another thing that separated me from others around me. I could hide my true emotions and fake a smile. I was known to most of the middle school as a polite, charming, intelligent, and obedient girl. I am a great actress.

I believe a more normal mother would have found out about the unusual or cruel things I had done and punished me for them. But my mother never cared enough to notice and see past my acting. She reprimanded me instead for things that were not worthy of such emotional punishment. The tallies continued. The time in the closet continued. The emotional manipulation and the neglect continued. Then, around when I turned thirteen, I graduated from "The Closet." What came next was even worse, however.

My mother was gone all day one day. That meant I woke up to an empty house. I found myself surprisingly disoriented and unsure of what to do. Part of me wanted to use this chance to run away and never come back. But mom was surely somewhere in the city, and all it would take to bring her back would be one call from one of the teachers at school reporting me absent. That's the level of insane control my mother held over my life. At last I decided to go to school. However, I wasn't about to spend the day normally. I called home using the school phone and nobody was there. I suspected mom would not return until late.

I decided to do something daring. That day, at the end of school, a boy asked to talk to me alone. He skipped the antiquated and frankly annoying love letter and simply asked if I wanted to be is girlfriend. He said he liked me. I think his name was Aizawa-kun. I told him I would go on a date with him the next day (Saturday) if he agreed to help me sneak onto the roof and hang out there with me. I also attached the condition that he had to buy me a can of good juice and let me see the action manga he was had in his bag. Usually, I had to go straight home after school, no exceptions. So this, to me, would be a day of complete freedom and breaking rules. Aizawa accepted.

As the sun set and things got dusky, I felt quite pleased with myself. I was never allowed to have canned juice drinks at home; I was only allowed to have one glass of pulpy, low-sugar orange juice with breakfast. The sugar gave me quite a buzz. I read the action shounen manga volume all the way through and I had found it full of surprising amounts of violence and blood. I enjoyed it. None of the teachers found me or Aizawa on the roof because Aizawa had actually stolen a spare key and everyone else had gone home.

With all that accomplished, I decided it was best to get back home. On the way out of the school, I told Aizawa that he was a bore and I would not go on a date with him. It was just as well, since my mother would never let me anyway. If I wasn't going to be spending time with him, I figured, I would just break up as cruelly as possible. In reality Aizawa wasn't boring, but that's what I told him. Oh, and I kept the manga—stole it—on purpose. Aizawa-kun never spoke to me after that. Again, it was just as well, since I wouldn't have been allowed to even be friends with him after today.

To my absolute horror, my mother was at home by the time I returned. It was dark already. Two or three times in the past, my mother had suddenly disappeared, but in those cases, she was gone three to five days at time and dad once told me it was because she was in a psych ward. I didn't know what that meant. Anyway, I wasn't expecting her to return to the house that evening. I wanted to just run away when I saw the car. But I knew I would be found eventually. I went inside, not knowing about the cage that would greet me.


	4. The Coming of The Cage

**4: The Coming of the Cage**

"Where the hell have you been?!" my mother shouted, hurrying over to me. She grabbed my shoulder at the base of my neck—her standard brachial nerve pinch—and pulled me into the kitchen without waiting for me to remove my shoes. "Do you care even a little bit about your worried mother? Obviously you don't, or would never do something this despicable. What have I done to deserve such cruel hatred? I adopted you and gave up my career as a working woman to raise you, and this is how you repay me? Where were you?!"

"I think you would be even angrier if you knew," I answered, upset and angry.

"Talking back to me, are you?" My mother gave some kind of self-satisfied snort and added a tally mark to magnetic board on the refrigerator. "Oh, and you were late." She added another. "Now, I wasn't born yesterday, young lady. Deceitful girls your age could only have been out doing one thing, and that is spending time with a boy! Confess, Yuno!" She shook me roughly. "You were seen at the end of the school day going off somewhere with a boy!"

"Yes," I admitted, my voice faltering, my eyes unable to hold contact with the ferocious eyes of my mother. "I was with Aizawa-kun. We snuck out onto the roof."

My mother slapped my face. "You horrible child!" she said venomously. "And I suppose you're not fit for marriage now, are you? What good are you to your father then?"

"Okaa-sama!" I exclaimed in surprise. "We didn't do anything inappropriate! We shared some cans of juice! I wouldn't have let him touch me even if he tried!" For once, I decided to let out a little of my anger. "And where were you? Spending time with the veterinarian again? You think I don't know? You're spending time with him and not telling dad about it. You're the one doing dirty things!"

After this outburst, my mother hissed that she had heard quite enough and she grabbed me again. She pulled me into the dining room where, to my surprise and horror, there was something else besides the usual furniture. It was a large steel cage. I had seen this exact type of cage the one time I snuck out and went into the animal shelter. This kind of cage was used for medium to large-sized dogs. The roof and floor were cold, solid steel and the rest was covered in bars just wide enough to get my hands through. Even a small child could have opened the cage with the simple latch system, but attached to it was a large and brand-new padlock.

Opening the cage, my mother pushed me toward it. I stumbled down and fell on my knees, staring through the small entrance, straight into the cage. I couldn't believe it was happening, but I heard my mother's voice, hazy, as if from far away, ordering me to get inside. I didn't know what to do. Tears came to my eyes and my body began to shake with small, suppressed sobs. What kind of horrible joke was this, I wondered? At least I could move the clothes and stand up straight when I was locked in the closet. I could also use the clothes for padding and take a nap. I looked up at my mother with the cutest face I could muster through the tears, smiling innocently.

"Okaa-sama, isn't it time for me to go up to the closet?" I asked in a weak, shaking voice. "One tally for talking back. One for being late. Another for being with a boy. And one more for saying that mean thing about the veterinarian. That's four hours in the closet, right?"

"I'm sick of you messing up my clothes in that closet," my mother bit back. "Besides, you left out drinking juice, reportedly sneaking onto the roof, talking back to me again just now, and I'm sure I can think of others. You will spend the entire night in this cage. You're never allowed in my closet again, or even in my bedroom. There will be no dinner or snacks for you tonight. Now get in there or I will kick you in there myself!"

Hearing all this, I completely broke down sobbing. I was only barely thirteen. I was terrified of the cage. It felt cold and hard. I was hungry, and I needed to go to the bathroom. I thought that nothing in the world could get me to go into that cage. A thought passed through my head that I might be able to fight my mother. But I looked at her and how tall she was and I despaired.

"I don't…" I sobbed. "I don't want to go in there. Please, Okaa-sama…"

"You are barely thirteen years old," my mother said, eyes cold, voice vicious. "Your father and I could simply give up on you, and do you know what would happen? You would be in the foster care system. You've lived a luxurious life so far. Do you really think you can survive being passed around by poor people with foster fathers who will beat you black and blue every day? They say that fathers will even rape daughters who are not their own blood. But Yuno, your father and I think of you as our own blood. We love you. But you are not worthy of such love. If you want to prove that you are worthy, you will do as I say without question. Do you understand?"

"Yes ma'am," I said in small and broken voice. The woman had convinced me that even worse things would happen to me if I did not enter the cage. She convinced me that she would love me more if I entered the cage. So I did.

My mother snapped the heavy padlock shut. She put the key in her apron pocket. She didn't speak another word to me all evening. The kitchen was only one room over from the dining room where I sat on my knees in the steel cage. I could smell that woman cooking food. To make things even worse, she came and ate at the table in plain sight of me. My stomach growled loudly, but my mother ignored me. Before going up to sleep in her comfortable futon, my mother briefly opened the cage to pass me a large mixing bowl. Then she closed and locked it again.

"You can pee in that," she said. "Goodnight." She didn't even leave me with a pillow.

That was one of the longest nights of my life. I kept hoping, as I whimpered to myself, that my father would let me out as soon as he got home. But he never returned home until after the weekend. That usually meant he had gone a business trip, but it could have been a vacation since it was over the weekend. I told myself again and again that I hated my father. He has taken his vacation time just for himself, leaving mom and I behind. He might be sleeping in a five star hotel somewhere.

Eventually, I drifted off into a half-sleep that was not restful at all. When I woke up, my body felt sore all over from sleeping in a cramped position on the steel floor of the cage. My mother finally let me out when the sun rose, and I had to prepare for school immediately. I felt like the world around me was unreal that morning. I would start to feel like that more and more after that day. My memories would get mixed up and there was a constant feeling of sickness and unease in my gut. I must have known I was being abused.

The cage became standard punishment after that, just as the closet had. My father never liked it, and if he was around, he would force my mother to let me out. But he never reported child abuse. He never tried to get his own copy of the cage key to let me out with. He never tried to simply throw away the cage. I was unable to believe that he actually cared about me. If he had, then surely he would not have allowed this to continue.


	5. Fighting Back

**5: Fighting Back**

I thought about screaming while I was in the cage. Surely someone would hear and come to investigate. But that might bring in child services, and I had been brainwashed by my mother to think that social workers were evil. That they were always trying to send kids to foster parents who abused them. Perhaps worse abuse than the cage awaited me if I alerted someone to my situation. Sometimes, though, I couldn't help it. I started crying loudly. I wept and wailed.

My mother heard and came down. She was crying and saying it was my fault, a trick that always made me feel lower than a worm. She would stand there and tell me that she was trying her best and that I was breaking her heart by objecting to her punishments. Sometimes that made me shut up out of a sense of guilt. Other times it made me cry louder. My dad came home late one night and saw mom and I crying and yelling at each other. He had been drinking.

It was at that point that he betrayed me. What my father did made me hate him for good. I could never love him again. After striking mom hard enough to leave a bruise to make her shut up, my father opened the cage briefly. All he did was tie a cloth bandanna over my mouth and around my head. He gagged me. I could sob and wail no more. Then he locked the cage, threw the key at my mom, and went to bed. He said he couldn't handle hearing either of us, mom or me, crying and yelling.

From time to time after that, I would cry and cry in the cage, unable to control my sobs. My mother would use the gag on me until I stopped. If I tried to escape during the few seconds the cage was open, she would give me a stunning blow to the ear, which was convenient because it left no mark or bruise. The gag would be removed when I stopped crying. During the hours spent in the cage, I was never allowed to eat. My mother cooked and ate her meals in plain sight of me. It was torture. She would give me water only after my voice got so dry I could barely beg for it. The torture of the cage started when I had just turned thirteen and continued until I was fifteen, when my parents met their unfortunate end.

I rebelled in my own ways during those long two years of hell. My family started having financial issues and they lost many of their connections. They stopped forcing and bribing teachers to watch me. My parents still wanted me to come home straight after school, but since the teachers no longer "worked" for them, I refused.

I started participating in club activities and becoming more social. I always wore that fake, cheery smile, carried myself with elegance, and put on a façade of false modesty and humility. I became very popular. For a while I was even the class representative. I received various honors for being a top student. In class, I volunteered to answer questions or read aloud, which went against my mother's rule of not speaking unless called upon.

This social school life was one of my ways to fight back against my parents. I rebelled in other ways too. I deliberately stayed away from home as much as possible. After school and on weekends, I would wander around neighborhoods and the town, learning to navigate. Riding the trains and buses became habit too. I liked being on the move. I practiced following certain people home from school to find out where they lived. Sometimes, if it was person I didn't like, I would note their house, come back later, and slash their car tires or break a window. Other times, I would sneak inside and steal from them. I don't remember feeling remorse.

That particular interest of stalking started because I had finally given up on getting any allowance from my parents. They were starting to have financial issues, but that wasn't why I had no allowance. It was because my allowance was always taken away as punishment. Yen would be subtracted every time I even dared to ask my mom a question. Yen would increase a little bit when I made ninety-eight or above on tests. My grades were dropping, though. I had been without any allowance for months. The topic of allowance wasn't even discussed anymore; my parents had no intention of giving any to me anymore. On the rare occasions I asked to borrow money, my parents refused, saying I was irresponsible and untrustworthy. I was absolutely forbidden from working a part-time job, even if I could have found one for a thirteen or fourteen year old. Thus, I turned to stealing.

I taught myself how to pick locks and break in through windows. I learned the best times of day to do it and not be seen. I wasn't afraid of the law. I picked out people at school that seemed rich and I learned to follow them home without being noticed. I waited for them to leave and then raided the house. I never left a mess though, or took anything of high value like electronics or jewelry. Such things could be reported missing and become worthless. I stole cash, medicines, food, and cheaper jewelry I could resell for one or two thousand yen.

Over the course of a year, I became adept at following people and spying on them without being noticed. I also spied on the scandals at school, like a teacher and a junior high schooler having sex, and I would usually expose the truth. Seeing students and/or teachers make out—or even have sex on occasion—made me grow increasingly curious about my own body and about boys. I experimented a little but never came close to losing my virginity, and I found that the boys around me were boring and didn't do much to excite me. They were still children, entranced by the fact that my chest was maturing so rapidly.

I'm surprised that I developed the way I did physically. At home, I was malnourished, usually missing at least one meal a day due to time in the cage. They were even a few nightmarish weekends where I was locked up for two or three days straight and fed scraps like a dog. However, I figured out how to keep health problems away.

To make up for the time cramped in the cage, I engaged in athletics at school, and became taller and stronger. I also joined the martial arts club and started learning quickly about basic self-defense. I stole money and used it to buy multivitamins, milk, and fiber bars that I would gorge on at school. I even stole some pills that I found in a teacher's purse which turned out to be a mild estrogen therapy drug. Soon I was both the smartest and the best-looking girl in the middle school.

Whenever possible, I snuck out of the house and away from home. I had more freedom this way. However, this also made my punishments harsher whenever I was caught. Eventually it got to the point where I was locked up at all times when I was at home. My mother even made me do my studying in the cage. There was nothing else to do, by the way, which is why I kept studying hard. However, it was becoming more difficult to think clearly. By age fourteen, I realized that I had started to lose weight instead of gaining it. I was being starved. My grades were slowly going downhill. I felt that I might lose my grip at any time.

By the time April 2010 came around and school started, I felt hopeless. It took everything I had to keep up the sweet smiles and friendly voice I used socially. Kids around me started talking about what they wanted to do for high school in two years. They seemed so carefree and healthy. They knew when they would eat, and they slept in real beds, assured of decent futures. I began to think that I was the only one whose future was truly shrouded. How long could I live like this? The heart I had put into my small rebellions began to fade. I started to despair.

My only comforts during those times were my new cell phone and the fact that I was finally going to a normal school. My parents said they could no longer pay for prestigious private academies, and so in April 2010, I transferred into a normal school. I felt like there would be less pressure for good grades here, and my grades had begun to fall as my ability to think clearly lessened. It seemed like I lived in a haze. I became obsessed with my new phone. I played games on it, texted with people from school, and began keeping a diary.

I think the desire to start a diary came from my history of recording all my "misbehavior" in the tally logs at home. Keeping a real diary would be senseless, because my parents would object and certainly demand to read it. Nobody would suspect me of keeping a diary on my phone, however. I didn't know what kinds of things to write about at first. Sometimes, I stared at the phone for minutes at a time, ignoring the rest of the world, and feeling trapped in a mental and emotional mist.

As I was swallowed by darkness, however, a light came to me. It came to me in the form of a boy. He was the first—and only—boy I ever really liked. He was in my class, and his name was Amano Yukitero.


	6. Amano Yukiteru

**6: Amano Yukiteru**

I wasn't raised to believe in mystic ideas of fate and I certainly wasn't taught to be a romantic thinker. Still, some part of me does believe in those lofty ways of thinking. I don't think meeting Yuki could have been a coincidence. It's true that I didn't notice him when I began my class in spring 2010. I noticed him soon enough, however. It all started when I was typing a diary entry into my phone during a boring Japanese class.

"April 12th, 2010, Monday. I spent the night in the Cage again last night. This morning, Oto-sama let me out and yelled at Okaa-sama. He called her a name I don't know. He left for work without even looking at me. I was too hungry to skip breakfast, but that means I had to eat at the same time as Okaa-sama. She called me a pig and said I would never be married. Then I came here to school. Now, I am…"

I got stuck there. I realized that my entry was extremely depressing. A wave of despair washed over me. Was there even a point of writing anymore? I looked up from the phone where it lay hidden on my lap. Perhaps, I thought, I should write about my surroundings. Looking around, I saw that everybody was gazing at the teacher, the board, or their books, and jotting down notes or doodles. Everyone, that is, except for Amano Yukiteru.

He was on his phone, just like me. If he didn't hide it better, he was sure to be noticed by the teacher. For a moment, I played with the idea of putting away my own phone and then tattling on Yuki to get him in trouble. Two things stopped me. First, he was an adorable boy. I had never seen a kid with blue eyes in my class before, and the mix of Asian and Caucasian ethnicity was highly attractive to me. His hairstyle and the hat he wore were so cute. This boy had his own fashion sense. He was short and thin, but I had never liked buff guys, and preferred a touch of femininity, so Yuki looked all the more attractive to me.

The second reason I decided not to call out Yuki was that he seemed to be writing a diary on his phone. Whatever he was typing was longer than a text message and he seemed almost intensely focused on it. I concluded that we must be kindred spirits. Now and then, Yuki looked up from his phone and looked around the room. He seemed to be looking for things around him to write about. As I watched, he eventually turned his head toward me, and for a moment, our eyes locked.

Eyes say a lot about a person. In the west they say you can see a person's soul from their eyes. Putting aside mystical beliefs like that, psychologists and other scientists studying human behavior admit that eyes are special and crucial parts of human communication. I won't say that I fell in love at first sight. But I became obsessed at first sight. Looking into those timid but bright blue eyes made me certain that this boy would be the object of my attention, desire, and even love for years to come.

In Yuki, I saw everything that I was missing. The opportunity for friendship I had never been allowed to have and the chance for the romance that only appeared in my wildest dreams. Love. Affection. Praise. Something to protect, something to fight for, someone who would depend on me. Empowerment. Responsibility. Passion. Honesty. In Yuki, I saw the whole world. My world had been small and dark, but Yuki, by looking at me, had opened up a new universe.

I decided to commit myself to Yuki from then on. That spring, followed him all around to find out what his home was like as well as the places he liked to go. He was an exciting person to stalk because he was always looking at his surroundings for entries in his phone diary. Naturally, I wanted to talk to Yuki, and I did a couple of times, but they were only greetings or they were formal between me, the class representative, and Yuki, the student. Talking to him as a potential lover, or even talking to him as friend, were daunting challenges. I shied away from them, deciding that I needed to wait for the right time.

Deleting all the depressing entries about life at home, I restarted my phone diary. It was now a log of the activities of Amano Yukiteru, a diary of love and obsession. Since I had nothing to do beyond studying and being locked in the Cage, I devoted all my free time (and then some) to Yuki. I followed him and spied on him whenever I could get away from the house, even if it meant staying out late and being locked up all day the next day by my insane mother. I knew that stalking wasn't natural. I knew that certain people would find it creepy or upsetting. But I didn't care. I didn't know how else to prove my love. To me, there was no choice. I felt no remorse. Rather, I felt empowered and pleased when stalking Yuki.

This behavior continued for a couple of months. Then the time came for my first real conversation with Yuki. However short, it was special. And the promise we made, though maybe no more than a joke to Yuki, was the important thing in my life.

On that day, in May, everyone in class was taking a survey of their future goals or dreams. I didn't even want to think about it. I was losing weight again and I knew I would have to start stealing more food. I might be caught at any time since the cops in Sakurami were most used to catching thieves and traffic violators rather than more serious felons. Anyway, I was also suffering from anemia, passing out sometimes, and the previous day, my mother forgot to leave me any water in the Cage. I might be hospitalized or even die of dehydration or a deficiency.

It seemed like my future options were jail or the grave. If I could survive the next few years, my parents might arrange marriage interviews, but that sounded horrible to me, because the only person I wanted to marry was Yuki. So I wrote the truth on that depressing sheet of paper, however hopeless it may be: "I want to become the bride of Amano Yukiteru."

Speaking of whom, I saw that Yuki was not finished with his survey yet. I decided to wait and turn mine in when he did. It turned out that Yuki was having even more trouble than me thinking of something to write. I waited and waited, and eventually everyone else finished their surveys and left. The teacher stepped out for few minutes, probably for a "special appointment" with one of the younger female teachers. Only Yuki and I remained in the classroom.

It took every bit of courage within me to leave my desk, start walking, and approach Yuki's desk. But I did it. I hoped I wasn't blushing. I couldn't help smiling a little as I said asked him,

"What's wrong? You couldn't think of what to write either?"

Yuki gave no direct answer, so I leaned over a bit and looked at his sheet. I read what he had written in light pencil, some of it partly erased already. "With my family, I want to go look at the stars."

I looked back at Yuki, but he stared down at the paper, beginning in a low voice, "Last week. …Last week, To-san and Kaa-san divorced. And well, we bought a telescope, but the promise to see the stars fell through." He gave a short, forced laugh. "It's weird, right? I'll change it." He began erasing the characters right away, blushing lightly.

I put my hand over his, stopping him from erasing it. "It's not weird," I said seriously.

"No, I really think it's weird," Yuki insisted, as I released his hand. "I mean, the teacher is going to see this, too."

Did he think it was childish to wish to see the stars with his parents? A boy his age would usually wish for a date with a girl. So I smiled and said, "Well, then. Would you like to see the stars with me?" I continued without thinking, my heart thundering. "There's an observatory not too far from here. It's a good idea, right?"

"But I wanted to do it with my family," Yuki said, though still embarrassed.

I gave an overdone sigh and said, "Really, you're so picky." He obviously couldn't tell that I had asked him out. I wanted to get the message across. At that point, I thought "what the hell," and picked up Yuki's pencil. "Well, how about this?" I asked, while writing.

I wrote my own wish on his paper. "I want to be your bride in the future."

Yuki stared up at me for a few seconds with his beautiful, wide eyes. I just smiled and looked back at him. He must have thought I was joking. But he seemed alright with playing along. After a few seconds, he smiled and nodded. It was the first time I'd seen him smile at school.

"Sure," he said, "when we grow up."

I nodded back at him, blushing despite myself.

After that, the teacher came back in and asked if we were done yet. Suddenly feeling awkward and embarrassed, Yuki and I turned in our sheets. He said goodbye and went ahead home for the day. I decided I would stay under the pretense of cleaning up my desk, and secretly follow him home. However, the courage to do so left me, like the color that drained from my face.

It was because the reality had hit me. I had basically asked out Yuki, and without even understanding that I liked him, he had more or less refused. Sure, he said we would marry in the future, but he may not have been serious. Even if he was, exactly how far away was that "future"? Could I wait that long? Should I try to clearly tell him I loved him? Would I even live to be around him for much longer? I wondered what to do.


	7. The Longest Year

**7: The Longest Year**

"Get in the Cage," my mother snapped at me when I got home. "You are twelve minutes late. That counts as two hours this time. And straighten the shoes!"

"Yes ma'am," I said obediently. This was in the days when I still tried to reason with my insane mother. "Okaa-sama, I'm very hungry," I remarked. "May I eat before I go into the cage? I will make a fine, early dinner for you as well."

"I'm having dinner out tonight," my mother said indignantly, as if I had suggested something extremely insulting. "You get another hour for talking back to me. Get in the Cage. Before I leave, in a few hours, I'll let you out. You can make one of your cheap little so-called 'meals' at that time."

"I don't mean to talk back, Okaa-sama," I said anxiously. "But, you see… I'm on my period… can I stay in my room just for today, so I can have access to the bathroom?"

"Gasai Yuno!" my mother exclaimed in a poisonous voice. "You're talking back to me again and trying to weasel your way out of your deserved punishment! I won't be fooled. And do you think I don't know it's your time of the month? I'll leave a tampon and a trashcan where you can reach them from the Cage. Honestly, anyone would know, because you reek of blood! You're worse than a bitch in heat!"

"That's because I was locked up all day yesterday and you didn't let me shower or bathe!" I snapped back angrily.

My mother grabbed me by the hair and pulled me into the dining room. She yanked on my pigtail and made me fall to my knees in front of the cage. "Get in there, this instant!" she shouted. "How dare you use that tone with me?! Forget three hours. You'll spend the whole night in the cage."

"Please leave me some water," I said with a sob, as I crawled into the cage.

"How troublesome. You can have the leftover coffee your dad made this morning." My mother made a great show of placing the stale coffee, bowl, tampons, and trashcan within reach of my arms. She acted like it was hard work. "Honestly," she huffed, "the things I do for you!"

She left soon after to eat dinner and continue her affair with the veterinarian. My mother had obviously been given the Cage by that man. Had she lied to him and told him she had a dog? Or could that man know about the abuse and not care? That made him no different from my father. My only hope rested on my father that day, though. He might come home and let me out. On the other hand, if he came home right after drinking, he wouldn't even notice me. If I said anything, he might yell at me. The next ten or eleven hours would be hell.

That night, in the Cage, I wondered what to do about my intense crush on Yuki. If he hadn't been able to understand that I was asking him out, he obviously wasn't interested in me at this point. Still, I could try telling him clearly and directly that I loved him. I wanted to, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought there was no way it could happen.

Even if Yuki could return my feelings, how could things work out between us? My parents would certainly never let me have a boyfriend. I could keep it secret, but my parents were bound to find out eventually. At that point, they would do everything in their power to break us up, even if it meant making me transfer schools and taking away my cell phone. Mom might snap and kill me in her rage. If that's how it was going to be, it would be better to just try to be friends with Yuki and keep our interactions to a minimum so that it wouldn't be an issue with my parents.

Would Yuki want me as a friend, though? I tried to look at myself objectively, but my self-worth was low thanks to my upbringing, and I could only think the worst of myself. I was the scrawny girl who had no friends. I was the class representative and thereby somewhat intimidating. I was not a timid girl at my core, and I was taller and tougher than most of the girls my age.

The negative things about myself seemed to have no end. I was the girl who heartlessly rejected all others; that had surely gotten around in the rumors by now. I could never invite friends over to my house because of my parents. I might disappear for an entire weekend if my parents locked me up in the Cage. Who would want to be friends with a girl as weird as me?

I decided that, for now, the only option was to keep stalking Yuki and adore him from a distance. So that's what I did. I stalked him for an entire year. Spring 2010 to early spring 2011 felt like the longest time period of my life. Things with my parents got worse. I had to take more risks stealing more food. I was weak and foggy-headed all the time. My body always ached from long hours cramped in the cage. During this time, the only air in my suffocating environment was Yuki. The only light in the darkness was Yuki. The only thing keeping me somewhat "sane" was Yuki.

On my Birthday on November 16, 2010, I was turning fifteen. The previous night, I stayed away from home and went to Yuki's house. I watched him all evening as he ate dinner with his mother, read manga in his room, and typed entries on his phone diary. I made an entry for him on my phone every ten or twelve minutes. He went to bed around ten since tomorrow was a school day. I stayed until midnight, wished myself happy birthday, and prepared to head home.

Before leaving, though, there was one thing I wanted to do. It was to treat myself. Yuki had left his window open just a crack since his room almost got stuffy in the evening getting all the light from late afternoon and sunset. I snuck into the yard and took the ladder from where it stood leaning against the tool shed. I brought it around, set it against the wall, and climbed to Yuki's window. After sliding it open slowly, I slipped through the window.

I planted a soft kiss on Yuki's forehead. I knew it was a risk, but this was a special occasion. He stirred a little in his sleep, and I slipped silently behind his dresser, in case he opened his eyes. I waited there until I heard him breathing slowly and regularly again, having gone back to sleep. Then, beaming with delight, I exited through the window, closed it partway, and climbed down. After putting the ladder back in its proper place, I headed home.

Yes, I knew that sneaking into a boy's room at night was scandalous. I also knew I had no right to kiss him while he slept, even if it was on the forehead. I knew that Yuki would be creeped out, insulted, and perhaps even hurt if he knew what I had done. Still, I felt no remorse whatsoever. Yuki was my reason for living. Sneaking in and kissing him gave me a thrill, the only pleasure I could count out in my terrible life. How could it be wrong to pursue that pleasure when it was all I had?

It was nearly two in the morning when I returned. That meant it was already technically my birthday. To my immense relief, my mother and father had already gone to bed. There was a note telling me to get in the Cage and threatening to send me away into the foster care system if I stayed out again. I ignored it. I locked my bedroom door and barricaded it with my desk. Then, for the first time in a few weeks, I slept in my own bed.

The next morning, my mother and father both tried to get me to come out. I ignored them and tried to sleep in, deciding I would skip school today for once. Eventually my mother started screaming, and even from the other side of the door, she sounded terrifying. I heard my father snapping at her and I heard the sound of him hitting her to be quiet. After that, she didn't bother me.

I waited until they both left the house. I made sure I saw Oto-sama driving away and Okaa-sama getting in the veterinarian's car. When I was absolutely certain my parents were gone, I moved the desk and opened my door. Then I went downstairs and made a huge breakfast for myself. As I ate, I found an iced glass of what appeared to be strawberry soda. Beside it was a note in my mother's handwriting that said "Happy Birthday."

This completely bewildered me. My mother usually bought clothes for my birthday and would afterward force me wear them even when I hated them. She had never bought me anything I asked for. On occasion, dad would buy me a book or movie I wanted. But neither of them ever allowed me to have candy, soda, or even canned juice. Part of me knew that something was terribly wrong with this picture.

But the strawberry soda was too enticing to pass up. If I waited any longer, the ice would melt, making it watery, and the soda would become flat. So, after breakfast, I drank the whole glass. Someone who knew the taste of strawberry soda might have noticed a slight difference: the tiniest bit of chalky flavor and a weak numbing sensation on the tongue. But for all I knew, that was how it was supposed to taste.

In reality, the juice contained dissolved pills: three entire two-milligram pills of clonazepam. I didn't know at the time that my mother had been prescribed clonazepam for insomnia or that she had become unhealthily addicted to it. I started to feel drowsy an hour later, so I laid down on the couch. In another twenty minutes, I was out like a light. I was lucky that I had eaten a large breakfast and a lot of water. On an empty stomach, that amount of drugs for a slender girl might have overloaded my liver and become toxic.

When I woke up, it was late at night, and I was in the cage. My mother had come home soon after her morning café date with the veterinarian. She had put me in the cage and I had been there, unconscious, for eight or ten hours. My body ached, I had the worst headache of my life, and I felt extremely hungry and nauseous at the same time. My mother came downstairs around midnight, when I was waking up, and threw a pill at me. That's how I discovered what had really happened.

"You better take that one," said my mother flatly, "or you won't sleep at all tonight. Yuno, this is what happens when you disobey and deceive your parents. Chew that up and stop crying. I'll let you out tomorrow for breakfast and school."

That was only the first case of my mother drugging me. She managed to do it several more times as 2010 rolled into 2011. It seemed that there was no such thing as a limit to my mother's abuse. That was the longest year of my life.


	8. The Things I Can't Forgive

**8: The Things I Can't Forgive**

In early spring 2011, events began to unfold that would lead up to both the best and worst mistake of my life. My father suddenly left on a business trip, but stopped responding to my mother's calls. In the end, he was gone for a week. During that time, I was completely at the mercy of my mother. She started crying and yelling at me more because my grades were becoming mostly Cs. That was due to the fact that I was being drugged with benzodiazepines, but of course, pointing this out would only get me in more trouble.

By sheer coincidence, there was a long weekend and a day off from school. The building needed emergency repairs, apparently. That meant I had three full days off from school. I was excited when I heard this, because I figured I could spend the entire time following Yuki around. However, my mother had other plans. Her mental state would lead her punishing me more than ever.

She was convinced that my father that left us for good, and her affair with the veterinarian had become public knowledge, resulting in the veterinarian breaking up with her, and the Gasai name losing its former glory in the rich social circles. My mother was completely shut off from the world she knew, thanks to loss of finances, her affair, and the neglect of my father. She started abusing her sleeping pills and not even hiding it anymore. She went back to slapping and hitting me at times. She cried a lot and expected me to listen as she vented all the frustrations of her life.

I didn't care. I couldn't care. I was locked in the cage starting Friday afternoon, and I was too hungry to want to listen to my mother's weeping. I was too hungry and angry to study, as well. I couldn't think clearly at all. I was starting to lose my grip mentally from malnutrition and dehydration. I couldn't sleep at night and I would cry and beg for food, but my mother only responded by forcing me to take pills to be quiet.

By Sunday morning, I was at my wit's end. It's hard to remember things clearly. I hadn't eaten since breakfast on Friday and a few crackers on Saturday. I hadn't had anything to drink in about twelve hours. I was dizzy and nauseous, my stomach felt like it was eating itself from the inside out, and I started experiencing muscle spasms. If I tried to take a pill from my mother, I vomited it back up. I had torn apart my notebooks and textbooks and had thrown them out of the cage. I stank from not bathing. I took off my shirt to chew on it and deceive myself into thinking I was eating, and I wrapped it around my eyes to try to stave off the maddening headache.

All I had left was my phone. I clung to it like it was life itself. I didn't know Yuki's number, but I filled up text messages to him and pretended I sent them. I remembered Yuki's usual schedule and started writing it out in my phone diary, hour for hour. I imagined watching him and I made new Yuki entries from my imagination alone. Due to the state of my mind, I wasn't sure if my entries were real or not, and I confused my dreams about Yuki with reality. I had no way of telling what was real besides the date and time displayed on my phone. I checked it compulsively every ten or twenty minutes except when I lost consciousness. The phone was my only sense of reality.

On Monday morning, my mother came downstairs and said that I was spending too much time on the phone and I needed to study. She put my textbooks and notebooks back in the cage. I told her I could not study and would not get off the phone. My mother demanded that I surrender my phone, and naturally, I refused. After that, she made a show, as usual, of crying and shaming me, asking what she had done to deserve such a daughter. Still, I wouldn't hand over my last tie to sanity.

Giving up on the crying and manipulating strategy, my mother turned to another strategy, the lowest form of deception. She brought me a glass of water and what appeared to be a plate full of uprooted grass and weeds from the edges of the lawn and flowerbeds outside. I hurried toward my mother to grab the water, not realizing what she might do when I was within arm's reach of her. She grabbed my phone. She wrenched it out of my hands, stood up, and started walking away.

"You can have the water and the food," she said, pocketing the cell phone. "I don't have time to waste making food for you. You can eat the grass. If you're good girl and you eat it all, maybe you can have your phone back. Stop crying, Yuno, or you won't be able to swallow right."

As if I could help it. I had no self-control anymore. I muttered words while I wept, shaking with sobs but hardly shedding tears because of dehydration. I gulped down the glass of water so quickly I almost spilled it, swallowing between piteous sobs. I missed Yuki. I wanted my phone. I was so hungry. I was so hungry. While my mother sat at the table and watched, I tried to eat the grass and weeds, some of them still attached to soil and root bundles, which I also tried to eat. I gagged before I was halfway through the serving of "food." Still, I forced down bites. Soon I was vomiting on the steel floor of the cage.

Between crying, trying to eat grass and dirt, vomiting, and trying to eat that vomit again like a dog, I started choking. I felt like I had inhaled grass and vomit. There was an ache in my lungs and I started coughing. It was difficult to breath. My breathe was wheezy. I had to stop eating because I was gasping for air and throwing up at the same time. I thought I was going to die.

I might have indeed choked to death there, had nothing chaged. However, at that moment, I heard a door opening, and a grumbling "Tadaima," spoken as if embarrassed. It was my father, back from his trip at last. As he entered the living room, my mother ran to him and threw herself at him, weeping like a small child. She said she thought he would never come back, she asked him where he had been, and she said, "Gomenasai" over and over again. My father held her for once and gradually calmed her down.

"I'm sorry, too," he added, genuinely. "I've been running away for a long time. I finally talked to someone who could help me. I knew I needed to come back. I won't disappear again. We're all going to get professional help after this. I'm sorry, Saika."

Then my father saw me. I was staring at my parents as I coughed and wiped vomit from my chin. Ushio Gasai stiffened, and he looked at my mother like she was a monster. The look only lasted for a passing second, and Saika didn't see it, what with her face against his chest. With a deep breath, probably to keep himself from striking her, my father broke out of the embrace and looked sternly into my mother's eyes.

"Saika, give me the key to the cage," he ordered in a voice of forced calm.

"But, anata," my mother protested tearfully, "I have to discipline Yuno. Otherwise I'll keep on being a terrible, worthless mother. The only way to be a good mother is to punish her. I want to become a good mother, Ushio."

"Give me the key," my father repeated, taking another deep breath and clenching his fists. "Good mothers make food for their daughters, even when the daughter misbehaves. You can still be a good mother, Saika. Start by giving me the key."

My mother surrendered at last and my father unlocked the padlock, tossed it aside, and opened the door. I stared at him in a daze, unable to think clearly at all. I expected another trick. My father tried to coax me into coming out of the cage, but I was like a scared rabbit, frozen in place. Eventually, he went and led my mother upstairs. He left a large glass of water and a cup of microwaved ramen on the dining room table.

I don't know how long I cowered in the cage, afraid that everything was unreal. At some point, the smell of the ramen became too much to resist. With every part of my body in agony, I crawled out of the cage and toward the table. I ate and drank, not caring that I ate the noodles so fast they scalded my tongue and throat. I sat there, shaking, sipping on another glass of water, and wondering what was going on.

Had I been mentally stable, I might have realized what had happened. My father had begun to have a change of heart. He intended to have us all go to family counseling, and send my mother to rehab to get off her benzos and get antipsychotic medication. Much later, I would find out from one of my dad's friends what really happened.

While away, my father had been hospitalized for drinking too much alcohol in combination with aspirin in a half-hearted suicide attempt. He had stayed there in the psych ward to detox from alcohol and get help. In the hospital, he spoke with psychiatrists and therapists and finally told them about his situation.

Ushio Gasai became stable within five days and was discharged, having secured appointments with a psychiatrist for himself as well as for me and my mother. It wasn't as if my father had suddenly become a responsible person overnight. But he had taken the first few difficult steps to change his ways.

I didn't know that. I wasn't capable of understanding it, either. Even if I understood that my father was going to try to repair the family, I would not have believed him. Nobody could expect me to trust that man when he left me to my mother's cruel designs for so long. There is no way of knowing if my father's "change of heart" was genuine, or if he would be able to keep my mother from abusing me. I assumed that it was a fluke and nothing more.

As I prepared another cup of ramen, I decided that I was going to get even with my mother just this once. She had nearly killed me. She had repeatedly drugged me. She had torn me apart from Yuki, kept me in a Cage, for three days. She had even taken away my phone. My father allowed it all to happen by being absent for seven days. I decided to get even with him, too. Thus began my ultimate scheme of retaliation.

To Be Continued

 **Next Time: Chapter 9: Retaliation Part 1. Yuno, still delirious from three days of starvation and drugs, puts her revenge plan into action. Please leave a review!**


	9. Retaliation Part 1

**9: Retaliation Part 1**

I never intended to kill my parents. I just wanted them to understand. If they understood my suffering, I was certain they would take better care of me. I was sure it would make us a happier family. The apple doesn't fall far from the trees, though. I was forgetful and neglectful, too. In the end, that's what killed my parents.

It was still that same Monday, the day when my father had come home and let me out of the cage. At first, I wondered what I could do to show my parents how much I suffered. But fairly quickly, I realized that the only way was to make them go through the same things I did. I would have to lock them up.

The thought horrified me only initially, a brief moment of my conscience surfacing, before it was drowned out by the memories swirling in my starved brain. Memories of being locked up. Memories of being in the dark. Memories of being so hungry I chewed on my clothes and ate grass. Memories of being slapped around by my mother, when I was far too little to fight back. Memories of being alone and wishing I had a father I could count on.

The plan came to me suddenly, and seemed so simple. At the same time, the smallest mistake could make the whole design an instant failure. I remained determined. The first thing to do was take stock of the food, including the groceries my father had brought back with him. It looked like there was enough food to make a delicious, if informal, meal of fried rice and vegetables, miso soup, and fish. My father had bought soda for once, too. That was the icing on the cake as far as my plan was concerned.

As I prepared the food, I sung softly to myself. To my surprise, I was nearly as happy as I was anxious, hurt, and angry. My emotions felt completely out of whack after not eating or drinking for so long. But why shouldn't I be happy? If this plan worked, all of us would end up happy.

"How long should I keep my parents in the Cage?" I thought to myself, as casually as if I were considering the weather. "Two days? Four? Three days for each sounds fair since I was in there for three days too. So, six days." I went on humming and muttering to myself, working to produce what would be the most delicious meal I had ever made.

As planned, the smell of cooking fish and rice soon attracted my curious parents from upstairs. They had probably been discussing things in private about my father's desire to get family counseling. (I say they were talking because they weren't the kind of parents that had sex often. I had only seen them kiss once in my life, and my father always looked embarrassed to show affection.) They asked me what I was doing.

"Oto-sama, Okaa-sama," I said with a cheery smile, "I am making a wonderful lunch for us all. I want to show you that I'm a good daughter."

"We know you're a good daughter," said my father, though it felt forced, or at least like he wasn't used to saying those words. "But you didn't have to do all this, Yuno. You should take a nice, long bath first."

"It's disgusting," my mother said indignantly, "cooking food while you still stink and have vomit on your blouse. And why does that blouse have holes in it? Were you biting your clothes again? Yuno, how many times—"

"Ahem, Saika!" my father interrupted, nudging the woman gently. "Yuno has already had her punishment, so there's no need to talk in such an angry voice. Look at this feast she's making for us."

"Yes…" My mother could tell that Ushio was expecting her to say something positive to me. It looked like it was a very difficult task for her. "You cooked the fish just right," she managed at last, stiffly. "You… you did a… good job… Yuno." She quickly turned to walk away.

"Okaa-sama," I called after her, never having lost my fake smile. "Thank you for praising my cooking. Will you and Oto-sama please sit down at the table? I will come and serve you myself, after I change clothes quickly upstairs."

My father took a seat and pulled one out for his wife next to him. "This is very generous of you, Yuno," he said. "You don't need to serve us, though. I want your mother to practice serving sometimes."

"Please," I insisted with sudden urgency. This was a key part of the plan. "Just stay seated, please. I will change clothes, come back down, and serve you. It's very important for me to do this today, Oto-sama."

My father conceded, and I bowed and excused myself formally, just like I had always been taught to do. I did change clothes while I was upstairs, but that was not the main reason I needed to excuse myself. I needed to enter my mother's bedroom and get a hold of her clonazepam right away. Fortunately, she had left it in plain sight on a dresser. I poured the contents of the bottle into my hand.

"Eighteen pills," I counted. "It takes three pills to put me out cold for six to ten hours. I'll assume it's twice that for grown-ups. Six for each of them. Though I might as well use the lot of them. I have to make sure they don't move at all for a few hours, after all. Besides, I know these pills are bad are for Okaa-sama, so I'll use them all and she won't have any problem with them anymore. This is like her last dose, so I am so sure she would be happy to take eight or nine."

Assured that everything would work out perfectly, I returned to the kitchen, the pills carefully tucked away into a pocket of my cardigan. Now came the most crucial and dangerous part of the plan. I asked my parents to please wait in the dining room. If they came in and saw me, the plan would fail. I ground up the pills with a mortar and pestle, working fast so as not to be suspicious. Now, where should I put the powder?

I decided to choose two different options in case one or other failed. One fourth of the powder went into father's serving of miso soup and one fourth into mother's serving. The other fourths went into two glasses that I filled with ice and soda and mixed well. As long as they each drank their whole glass and whole serving of miso, the drugs would take effect. Hoping for the best, I brought out the soup and drinks, followed by the rice and fish.

"Everything is delicious, Yuno," said my father, still extremely stiff and awkward at giving compliments. "You'll eat with us, won't you?"

"If that's what you want, Oto-sama," I replied politely. "I just wanted to serve you two first to show respect. I'll go get my serving now. Thank you for buying the soda, Oto-sama. Is it really alright to have some?"

"Why did you buy soda?" my mother whispered impatiently at my dad. "Don't you know it's bad for the health of children? It's nothing but sugar. It rots out your teeth. Ushio, we can't let Yuno—"

"Saika, please," Ushio said, just barely managing to change his voice from a shout down to a polite town. "This… this is an exception, alright?" he told my mother. "We're all having soda as a family treat. After today, I won't buy soda. Alright?"

My mother seemed satisfied with that, so at last, I sat down to eat with my parents. I did not let my guard down, though. They were acting extremely nice compared to how they usually were. Rather than feeling happy about this, I could only feel suspicious, wary, and somewhat frightened. Could they be planning to do something terrible to me after today? In the past, when they had been kind, it had never lasted long, and the cruelties would resume with a fresh sting. I hid all my worries though, behind my cute and innocent smile.

After lunch, my mother went back upstairs probably to get a pill, and my father said he was going to an afternoon meeting with a potential talk therapist for all three of us. Both developments were alarming. I couldn't let my father leave. Wat if he passed out while driving? What would my mother do when she saw that the pills were gone? I realized how foolish my plan was, and I began to despair. I retreated to my room and locked the door.

Miraculously, things still worked in my favor. My mother assumed that my father had taken away her pills, and they started fighting. The arguing eventually escalated to yelling and ended with my father shoving my mother hard enough to make her fall. Then he stormed down the stairs and said he was going to watch TV and drink, and "To hell with you all." Afterward, my mother came to my room and started accusing me of stealing the pills. Ever polite and cheerful, I lied my ass off.

On an ordinary day, my mother would have insisted that I stole them and dragged me back down to the Cage. This time, however, she kept yawning and stumbling. She said she was going to take a nap. For a while I heard nothing but the sound of the television downstairs. When an hour had passed, I left my room and checked on both parents. They were sound asleep, their breathing slow, and they did not wake up when I stirred them.

I didn't know anything about tolerance or cross tolerance of benzodiazepines or alcohol at the time. I read about it much later. For a person who abused clonazepam every day, even the eighteen milligrams I gave mom might not have knocked her completely out. However, if a person abuses clonazepam for years and years, they eventually become less and less tolerant of it, such that only a few milligrams will make them zonked. This was the case with my mother. She was completely unconscious. I may have actually endangered her life. Later when she woke up, she would suffer a lot of sickness and vomiting.

As for my dad, I unknowingly endangered his life too. Clonazepam and alcohol are metabolized by the same liver enzyme, and so if you mix the two substances, the liver can easily become overloaded, leading to liver disease or death from acute liver failure. Luckily, my father had only had two beers before passing out, so he wouldn't die from the mixture. It certainly helped ensure that he was out could, though.

The next step would be moving my parents' heavy bodies into the Cage. I would start with my mother. I had to get her all the way down the stairs, so she would be by far more difficult to move than my dad. I smiled as I stared at her unconscious face and drooling mouth. I took my cell phone back from out of her pocket and held it to my chest. Then I typed a text message to a nonexistent number, pretending I was sending it to Yuki.

"My beloved Amano-kun," the message read, "soon my parents will understand me. They will treat me better. And I'll have more time and freedom to be with you."

Everything was going my way for the first time in my life.


	10. Retaliation Part 2

**10: Retaliation Part 2**

It took a while to move my mother from her bedroom upstairs all the way down to the Cage. First, I put down pillows on the floor and rolled her off the bed so she fell onto the padding. Then I tried to drag her by her arm. I wasn't strong enough, and the force on her arm must have been painful, because she stirred a little bit. I tried dragging her by both legs next and managed to get her into the hallway. However, her head was bumping against the floor in a way that would surely wake her up if I wasn't careful.

Finally, I figured out I could put my arms under hers and lift the upper half of her body. I was able to successfully move her this way without having her wake up. Going down the stairs was rough, and I sweated hard, unused to carrying such weight. A few times, I thought for sure she would stir. At last, however, I got her into the Cage. I pushed her in and closed the door.

Next was my father. He much heavier, but I only had to move him from the living room to the dining room where the Cage was situated. I struggled to get him to fit into the cage without putting him on top of my mother. I had to go into the Cage myself and arrange their bodies. I smirked, thinking it would be my last time in the Cage. I took the key from my father's pocket, crawled out of the cage, shut the door, and locked the heavy padlock over it.

Just as my mother had done for me, I left each of my parents a glass of water and a bowl to pee into. They had never given me any cushioning in the Cage, and I remembered the pain and soreness caused by the cold steel. So I put in a pillow and light blanket for my parents to share. I wouldn't be quite as cruel as them, after all.

I felt ecstatic. Suddenly, I the whole world was mine. I decided to have a day of freedom. There was a total of 3500 yen in cash around the house and in my parents' wallets. I took it, along with all their debit and cards. Then I made sure to take both of my parents' cell phones and put the Cage key in my purse. I was ready to set off.

That Monday evening was a lot of fun. I bought candy and ice-cream at the convenience store and ate them happily. Then I set off for Yuki's house. I hid on the hill next to the house where I could see into his bedroom with binoculars. He wasn't there. In fact, none of the family seemed to be around. Perhaps they had gone on a trip since everyone was out of school that day.

Using the ladder trick again, I climbed into Yuki's room through the window. As far as he knew, he had no reason to lock it. People generally didn't lock second story windows in Sakurami suburbs. Sometimes even first-story windows were left open. I left a pile of candy in Yuki's room, all of them fruit-flavored, which I knew was his favorite. I looked around his room for a while and finally left, carrying one of the dirty undershirts he had left on the floor. It was my keepsake. It smelled like Yuki. I rolled into a tight roll and stuffed into my purse. Then I put the ladder in its proper place and left the house.

I ate a low-cost but delicious evening meal at the small diner fifteen minutes' walk from my house. I had always wanted to go there. My parents said it was a cheap, dirty diner for lower class people, but everyone at school said it was a fun place and the New York style pizza was to die for. I tried it myself and thought I would pass out from euphoria. I washed it down with an iced cola.

When I returned to the house, my parents were still out cold. I put away all the food, tidied up the kitchen, and cleaned up my torn textbooks and notebooks. Bringing them upstairs to my room, I tried to repair them with tape and glue. When the job was done, I decided to go to bed a bit early. Sleeping in my own futon with an extra pillow felt like heaven. I slept well for the first time in weeks.

The next day, I was less sore and sickly, and my head felt much clearer. I remembered that I had locked up my parents and a part of me was frightened at the realization. No part of me was "sorry," though. I dismissed the nagging fear and packed my bag for school. Then I ate a big breakfast in the kitchen. As I finished my meal and started washing the dishes, my parents began to wake.

My father woke first, and it was an understatement to say that he "freaked out." He metaphorically exploded with rage. I had never seen my father so angry. He kept yelling terrible things at me and threatening to hurt me if I did not let him out. Perhaps if he had been cleverly manipulative like my mother, that would have worked. But the only thing his anger accomplished was making me too afraid to even approach the Cage.

I ignored my raging father and unconscious mother and went on to school. First, though, I made sure all the windows were shut and all the fans in the house were on. I left the TV on high volume too. All of this would make it difficult for any nosy neighbors to hear my shouting father. I had to use this technique because I could not gag them the way they did to me. If I opened the cage, they would overpower me. All I could do was hope that my parents' voices would fail to reach anyone.

It was a normal day at school. It was a little better than normal, actually. I had been replaced as class representative due to falling grades, and my teachers were concerned that I would start to fail tests. However, my mind was surprisingly clear after just a good night's sleep, a real bath, and three regular meals. I understood nearly everything we covered in class. I answered questions and performed even better than the new class representative. In no time, I would be making straight As again.

After school, I spent the day following Yuki around and putting entries in my Yukiteru Diary every ten minutes. When I returned home, my mother was awake. Now both my parents were freaking out. They were rattling the bars, shouting, and saying terrible things. I tried to explain that I was just showing them how things were for me and I would let them out in a few days. My mother called me a monster and said she regretted ever adopting me. That stung. I went to my room to eat so I wouldn't have to hear anymore. I gave them each a glass of water but didn't leave them any food.

The next few days went on much the same way. I attended school, stalked Yuki, studied at home, and ignored my parents. They kept saying terrible things that made tears come to my eyes, so I ignored them. I forgot to keep giving them water. I answered their cell phones for them and told everyone who called that there was a family emergency and my parents would be unavailable for a few days. One neighbor came to ask about the shouting, but he thought the shouts were from my parents fighting, and he asked me to tell them to stop fighting so much. Nobody suspected they had been calling for help.

By day four, my parents were too weak to shout, and something was going on with my mother. She was probably having hallucinations from acute withdrawal from clonazepam, but I didn't know that. She became very ill and her words stopped making any sense. My father was frightened out of his mind that she might die. He begged me to let them out. I told them with a smile that they only had two days left.

The next morning, I exchanged my last words with my parents.

"Yuno," my father said in a broken, rasping voice. "Let us out."

Ignored him, busy making breakfast.

"Yuno," he said again. This time he sounded "off," as if delirious. "I love you, Yuno."

"Oto-sama?" I asked in surprise, coming closer. When had he ever said that to me?

"Don't," he said, smiling, his eyes glazed and his hands trembling. "Don't call me that. Call me papa. You used to call me papa when you were five, before we decided to make you use formal speech. It was so nice… to hear you say papa."

I looked at my half-conscious mother. "Okaa-sama, is that true? I used to be allowed to say papa? And did I call you mama?"

"Monster," my mother murmured feverishly. "Never should have… raised you… never should have… named you… should have… left you to the streets."

My guard had been lowered by my father's apparent kindness, but it came right back up when I heard my mother say those words. Tears came to my eyes. I backed away from the Cage, where I had been kneeling beside it, and stood up.

"Hang in there, papa and mama," I said with an almost robotic smile. "Tomorrow afternoon I'll let you out, as long as you don't talk back to me."

I didn't say "I love you, too," to my father. I wish I had, because it might be true, deep down. Loving my mother was impossible. Still, I didn't mean to kill her. I didn't mean to kill either of them. But I figured that they could go one more day without water; I had been through worse. I didn't check on them at all again that day. They were quiet, presumably unconscious, when I returned from stalking Yuki. They were still quiet when I left for school on the sixth day. I stayed out late that day, despite what I had said. Surely there could be no harm in one more afternoon.

I returned at night. My parents were both asleep. At least, I thought they were asleep. I filled two glasses with water and made two cups of ramen. Then I unlocked the cage, opened the door, and called to my parents,

"You can come out now. I'm done with the plan now. Since you know how terrible the Cage is now, you'll never lock me up again. Right?"

Neither of my parents answered. They didn't move. I shook them, and they still didn't move. I splashed cold water on their faces. Again, there was no response. A terrible sense of doom and dread came over me all of a sudden. Had I let them go too long without water? When was the last time I gave them water? Had I even done it at all after the second day? As it possible that they were… could they be…

I reached into the Cage and grabbed my father's hand. I checked near his wrist for signs of a pulse, but I could not detect any. When I looked closely, neither my father nor my mother appeared to be breathing. Their bodies were strangely cool. They also smelled like excrement. They must have died only a few hours ago. In just a short time, they would become stiff as boards and cold as steel.

My heart sped up. It beat harder and harder until it made me dizzy. So that's what people meant when they said their hearts were thundering. There was a terrible feeling in my stomach that I couldn't name. My hands began to shake. My vision clouded over with tears.

"Papa!" I shouted, my voice breaking. "Wake up! Hey, wake up! Papa!"

I sobbed like a small child when he didn't respond. I felt nauseous. This couldn't be real. It couldn't be happening.

"I'm sorry!" I cried, taking both my parents' hands as they started to grow cold. "This wasn't supposed to happen! I didn't mean to! I didn't mean to! Mama! Who's going to worry about me when I'm out late past curfew? Who's going to buy me nice clothes? Who should I try to make happy if you're not around?" I hugged her body to mine.

Then I turned back to my father. "Papa, I never said that I love you, too. I do! I love you. Please come back. Who's going to provide for me? Who's going to bring home tacky gifts from work? Whose dress shirts and pants will I wash, dry, and fold? Papa!"

I kneeled there on my knees in the cage, crying over the two fresh corpses that used to be my parents. If will alone could bring life, I would have had enough to bring my parents back ten times over. This was a nightmare. As my mind tried to accept that I really had killed my parents, wild urges came to mind. Drinking all dad's beer with a bottle of aspirin. Stabbing myself with a kitchen knife. Running out in front of the train on the subway. Joining my parents in death. It would only be fitting, I thought.

The only thing that stopped me from killing myself was the sudden memory of Yuki's face. From now on, that and that alone would be my only anchor to a semblance of sanity. I was broken, and I could never be made right again. But all the scattered pieces of me were shakily drawn back and clumsily glued together by the memory of Yuki. The only person left in the whole that I loved: Yuki. My only hope for the future: Yuki. My only hope for forgiveness and redemption lay in Yuki.


	11. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

 **After the First World's Survival Game...**

Various historians and philosophers say that history repeats itself. Some say that it's because basic human nature doesn't change. Pride is part of human nature, and something that every human carries with him, consciously or otherwise. The worst things have happened to me when I am convinced without a doubt that I am right. When I am prideful, you might say.

My parents died because I was so certain that locking them up was the only way to make them understand me. If I had questioned myself more, if I had thought of some other way, they might have lived. Then again, they might have ended up killing me from abuse or negligence. No one can say. I killed people alongside Yuki in the first world's survival game because I was sure that was the only way to keep him alive till the end. Perhaps I was right. And perhaps I would have been killed myself if I hadn't learned to be bloodthirsty. But I'm not always right.

I was wrong to rely on the assumption that the winner of the survival game would have the power to raise the dead. I was wrong to bet on myself instead of Yuki there at the end. I was so certain that it was the only way. I felt sure we would both be happy with the result. I'm the one who caused Yuki's death. That's why I'll never be able to forgive myself. That's why I think, in the end, I will kill myself and let Yuki live, if I ever have the chance to redo this horror story.

Yuki and I had killed all the other diary owners. The world was starting to fall apart. Deus was no longer in a state where he could communicate with humans. Murmur urged me to find a way to end the game. She knew I was the strategist. I had always come up with the best plans to keep myself and Yuki alive. I decided on my own, and not because of Murmur, that I would be the one to take Godship. But I didn't tell that to Yuki. I couldn't make myself kill him, either. At least not directly.

I was the one who led Yuki to following through, but the original idea was his. "What if neither of us wins?" he asked, staying over at my place after we had killed the eleventh and the eighth. "What if we turn this into a game with no winners?"

"I can't kill you, Amano-kun," I said, and I honestly believed it.

"That's not what I'm saying." Yuki and I were sitting side by side on the deck facing the yard, and he was crouched forward pensively, his head supported by one hand. "I could never kill you either, Yuno." A faint smile came to his face for the first time since the last brutal killing. "Let's just leave this world. Let's escape."

"You mean like in the romantic movies or plays?" I questioned. "Where the couple dies together? This does all seem like some kind of tragedy story. But if we died, what would happen to this world, Amano-kun? Who would become God?"

"You know," said Yuki, in a rather distant voice, "I don't know if this world really deserves to be saved." He had lost his parents during the course of the survival game. "I sometimes think I want this world to pay. What's wrong with letting it all go to hell?"

"You're not cut out to be a God at all," I replied, though I said it with understanding and affection. "There are many people whose lives could be saved if one of us becomes God. Any world that's Yuki's world deserves a chance. Besides, if you become God, you can resurrect your parents and all the people we killed together. Isn't that how we were able to keep going, and keep killing? As God, you can bring them back to life."

"I know all that," Yuki sighed. "But we have to face the facts. Neither one of us can kill the other. But, if we both killed ourselves, there's no problem. The truth is, I don't want either of us to become God if it means we'll be separated. I love you, Yuno." Yuki put his hands on my shoulders, drew us together, and kissed me on the mouth.

I was caught up in the kiss, and afterward, I was reluctant to say anything that went against Yuki's opinions. I thought to myself, however, "Yuki, we'll only be separated for a few hours at most. As soon as one of us dies, the other can become God and resurrect the other." It seemed so simple to me. I felt certain I was right. But I didn't want to argue with Yuki.

"Let's do it together, Yuno," he was saying, embracing me as we sat on the edge of the deck. "Let's leave this world together. All we need are a bunch of sleeping pills, and each other."

"If that's what you want, Amano-kun," I answered sweetly, "we'll do it your way." In my head, I thought, "Or that's how it will look to you, anyway. I'll make sure I survive. I'll become God and bring you right back to life, my beloved Yuki."

We made plans and began our lovers' suicide that night. We drank sake that Yuki had taken from his house where his mother used to hide it. We split a large bottle of diphenhydramine, a readily available allergy medicine that induces rapid pulse and delirium at high doses followed by a crushing, irresistible drowsiness. Mixed with the alcohol, the sleep effect would double, and we hoped to die relatively peacefully in our sleep. That alone didn't seem enough, though, so we also took the refill bottles of clonazepam and propanolol that I got from the pharmacy under my mother's name.

Yuki drank all his sake and took all his pills—shakily, but without shedding a tear. He really was trying to die, and had no reservations. It pained me to see that, but I got through it by imagining how wonderfully recovered he would be when I brought him and his parents back to life.

I could have stopped Yuki at any time. Why did I just sit and watch him poison himself? I have nightmares and flashbacks about that all the time. I still have nothing to say for myself, except that I was so sure I was right, and could bring Yuki back to life.

As for me, I secretly dumped my share of the clear sake down the sink, replacing it with water. I pretended to swallow each pill and kept them in my mouth, secretly spitting them out into my hands and pockets when Yuki wasn't looking. I did take a few of them, enough to make me drowsy and uninhibited, but not nearly enough to kill me.

The two or three hours leading up to the time when Yuki passed out were not glamorous or particularly romantic. Overdosing and mixing substances is not an easy way to go, even if you manage to pass out and die in your sleep. Before that point, Yuki was sick as a dog, trying his best not to throw up the pills he took. He experienced waves of nausea and pain. He hallucinated from all the diphenhydramine and panicked a few times. Each time, I calmed him down, and brought him back to the futon to lie down with me. He was too out of it to really make love, but we cuddled and kissed.

At some point, I drifted off to sleep holding Yuki's hand in mine. What woke me up were the pills in my mouth that I had pretended to swallow. I almost swallowed them in my sleep. I woke up coughing and spat them out. Then I looked to my right where Yuki lay holding my hand. His mouth was open, and bit of blood and vomit dripped out. His hand was losing its warmth. I felt no pulse when I laid my head on his chest. There were no signs of breath. Yuki had killed himself. I had allowed it to happen.

Without warning, the scene of the bedroom and futon faded away, and I found myself and Yuki in the cathedral of Deus. Murmur materialized next to me and leaped up in the air excitedly.

"It's about time!" she exclaimed. "It's over at last! I hereby announce that the winner of the survival game is the Second, Gasai Yuno! She will be made into the next God of Time and Space!"

There's no use in trying to explain exactly what happened after that. It's difficult, if not impossible, to use words to describe what it is like to become the world's Goddess. All the knowledge and power flowed into me. I became aware of everything. Murmur told me how to start correcting the world, which was falling apart as we spoke. But before I even looked at the rest of the world, I looked back at Yuki. I wanted to bring him back to life right away.

I had never asked Deus or Murmur if it was really possible to bring back the dead. I tried for myself and found out the cold, hard truth. I could not bring back the dead. Though I restored Yuki's body and brain, something was missing. He just wouldn't wake up. It was as if he was in some kind of a coma. The body functions that I restored would die off again after a few minutes. There was a part of Yuki that just wouldn't wake up. Perhaps it was his consciousness; perhaps it was his will to live.

"It's what we call his soul," Murmur said flippantly, after watching me try to resurrect Yuki a dozen times. "Deus experimented with this stuff for a few hundred years. He never could bring back a person's soul. He would try again every few thousand years when cultures he liked died out. But it seems the human 'soul' is outside of the calculations of the causality of time and space."

"You're saying…" I stifled a sob. "You're saying that I can't bring people back to life?"

"Tough luck, hun," said Murmur casually.

For a few seconds, on my knees beside Yuki, I was silent and dumbfounded. I don't know how long I sat there, unable to accept the truth, trying to think straight for any ideas I might have overlooked. I felt like a child lost in the morning fog in the mountains, and gradually the fog thickened, until I felt like a traveler caught in the mire of a bog, feeling the wet earth give way under my feet and surround my body. It was as if I couldn't breathe. The quicksand forced the air out from my lungs.

I stared at Yuki's lifeless body. Could he really be gone? Had I killed him the same way I killed my parents, all the while certain that my plan was perfect? My head swam and I rocked my body back and forth, arms crossed. Something was missing. Yuki. Yuki was missing. He had been my constant companion ever since the start of the survival game a few months ago. And long before that, he had been my hope in life. What in the world was I supposed to do without Yuki?

The tears came slowly at first. It had been a long time since I last let myself cry. My vision blurred with the moisture welling up in my eyes. I blinked, and two small tears trickled down my cheeks, one from each eye. My body began to shake from sobs, which I tried to stifle at first. Just as I had done with my father, I took Yuki's body and hugged it to my chest, holding him tight. The warmth of life was already leaving him.

"Yuki," I breathed. "If you leave me behind… what will be left of me? Please, just say something. I would have chased you anywhere. All my being is wrapped around you. If you go this way, how can I follow you?"

My voice broke, my eyes filled with tears again, and I could no longer contain the sobs. Crying like a small child, I held Yuki. Calling out his name, and remembering the feel of his kiss, I held him. Cursing myself, I held Yuki. And finally, cursing the entire universe, I fell into despair. The blackness and emptiness in my mind and soul were so complete that I couldn't even think about suicide. I could think of nothing but Yuki, and how I wanted to see his smile once again.

If I had ever possessed sanity, it died in that moment, when the despair took me. After that, nothing made sense for a long time. It was as if the real me was unconscious somewhere deep inside me, but some force drove my body to keep acting, to find Yuki. I conspired with Murmur and began the plan to cross into the second world. Madness overcame me, and I could hardly remember what was real and what wasn't. Only one glimmer of my true self poked through the thick blackness as I put the plan into action.

"Next time," I thought, "I won't be able to kill Yuki. I'll stab myself in the heart before I let myself lay a hand on him."

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. For most of the course of the second survival game, I would be insane. Perhaps, though, by the very end, I would realize what needed to change. I prayed I could find that change, even if it meant sacrificing my own life.


End file.
